


My Bunch Of Crazies

by CallieB



Series: Sterek Bingo 2017 [8]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Derek, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, M/M, Pack Feels, Pack Mom Stiles, SBalpha, SBelno, Sterek Bingo 2017, sbpackmom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-12
Updated: 2017-05-27
Packaged: 2018-10-31 03:15:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10890546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CallieB/pseuds/CallieB
Summary: The pack no longer fits in Derek’s loft. This, Derek feels, is Scott’s fault; if he hadn’t in his brief tenure as True Alpha – whatever that’s supposed to be – decided to save Liam’s life byturninghim - well, then they wouldn't have Liam. Or Mason. Or Corey, or Hayden, or even Theo, probably.Ah, a life without Theo. Wouldn'tthatbe nice?Written for theEveryone Lives/Nobody Dies,Pack Mom StilesandAlphasquares on my Sterek Bingo card.





	1. Like A Bridge

**Author's Note:**

> I have SO MANY FEELINGS about this fic, you guys. Like, I want this to be canon, and I want it to go on longer and I want to have written an entire fucking multi-chap epic about it and... yeah. I really really want this to be real. Come talk to me about it on [tumblr](https://13callieb.tumblr.com/)!

The pack no longer fits in Derek’s loft. This, Derek feels, is Scott’s fault; if he hadn’t in his brief tenure as True Alpha – whatever that’s supposed to be – decided to save Liam’s life by _turning_ him – well, then they wouldn’t have Liam. Or Mason. Or Corey, or Hayden, or even Theo, probably.

Ah, a life without Theo. Wouldn’t _that_ be nice?

At twenty-six members – not counting Braeden, who swans in and out when she feels like it – the Hale pack is now bigger than it was when Derek’s mom was Alpha, which is weird, and also kind of sad. Derek oscillates between missing his family so hard that his heart aches with it, and actually enjoying the dynamic of having so many people around him all the time. This is his family now; he can feel it in their shared heartbeats pulsing around his body.

Still, there’s no denying that they absolutely do not fit in the loft anymore.

“What’s the big deal?” Stiles says lazily when Derek brings this up one evening. Stiles is picking pieces of glass out of Isaac’s back with a pair of tweezers, because the monster of the week – a chimera – decided it would be fun to grapple him through a window. “Don’t you have, like, a house?”

Yes, Derek does have a house, although it’s more a pile of rubble at this point. Isaac winces as Stiles removes a particularly large shard of glass from his shoulder. “Fuck!” he complains.

“This is your own fault,” Stiles says severely. Derek tries to remember why Stiles came back to the loft after they finished with the chimera; everyone else who doesn’t live here has gone home. “Next time, do everyone a favour and have your fights on a bouncy castle. Or a pile of pillows.”

“Yes, mom,” Isaac mutters sullenly.

“Stiles,” Derek says, because there’s something very frustrating about the fact that he can’t remember why Stiles is here. “Go home. I’ll deal with Isaac.”

“Nearly finished,” Stiles says. He yanks out another piece of glass; Isaac yelps. “I think that’s the last one. Be good, Isaac.” He hops down from the stool he’s sitting on. “Der, how’s tomorrow? At ten?”

“Tomorrow?” Derek repeats blankly.

Stiles raises his eyebrows. “To go take a look at the house? We can figure it out from there.”

“Oh,” Derek says. He can’t quite remember agreeing to that, but he supposes it makes sense. “Yeah. Sure.”

“Awesome,” Stiles says. He ruffles Isaac’s hair – Isaac blushes and ducks his head – and then he’s gone, the sliding door banging behind him.

Derek waits until he’s out of earshot before turning to Isaac. “What was that?” he asks.

Isaac stares at him. “What was what?” He sounds totally bewildered.

Derek grinds his teeth. “Never mind,” he mutters.

*

Stiles arrives at seven minutes past ten the next morning; Derek knows this because he’s been sitting at the kitchen counter for exactly seven minutes, leg jigging impatiently while he waits. Derek doesn’t like to be kept waiting, although he knows from experience that questioning someone – especially Stiles – over a seven-minute delay is completely pointless.

“Hey,” Stiles says in greeting, sliding back the enormous door. He grins. “Have you been going crazy?”

“No,” Derek says haughtily.

Stiles holds up two Starbucks cups. They smell amazing. “So you don’t want apology coffee?”

Derek narrows his eyes. “If you hadn’t stopped for apology coffee, would you have been on time?” he asks.

“Yes,” Stiles says blithely. “But then you wouldn’t have coffee. Come on, dude.”

“Don’t call me dude,” Derek says automatically, slipping off his stool and following Stiles out of the loft and downstairs. Stiles is looking particularly fresh-faced today, in a green plaid shirt over a grey top that smells like comic books and laundry detergent. For some reason, Derek finds this incredibly irritating.

“So,” Stiles says as they get outside, where his Jeep is parked haphazardly in front of Derek’s pathetic row of flowerpots. “Which car are we taking?” He grins, his teeth flashing unexpectedly. “I vote Camaro, personally.”

This is a quandary. On the one hand, Derek loves his car, and it has the added bonus of not being _Stiles’_ car, which he definitely does not like. On the other hand, Stiles should come with a hazard warning; Derek practically has paroxysms every time he so much as touches the Camaro, because you just never know what’s going to happen. He sighs. “Mine,” he says.

Stiles punches the air. “Awesome,” he says. He grins cheekily at Derek. “Can I drive?”

“ _No_ ,” Derek says firmly. Stiles barely pouts, already heading for the passenger side; Derek wonders vaguely why he even bothers asking. Unless it’s to wind Derek up, which to be fair is exactly the kind of thing Stiles would do.

“Have you been back to the house much?” Stiles asks as he slides into the car. “Since it was condemned, I mean?”

There was a time – way, way back – when Derek used to live at his house, even without the luxuries of running water, electricity or furniture. Stiles made fun of him for it, and even though he’ll never admit it, now that he actually has basic amenities Derek isn’t quite sure how he managed it. That was before the housing council declared the property structurally unsound, which Derek hadn’t cared too much about since even if it fell down on him he’d almost certainly survive, but it had been condemned anyway.

“No,” he says in answer to Stiles’ question. He’s never seen the point of going back to what is essentially a pile of rubble on a piece of empty land; it’s just going to make him sad. Which begs the question of why, exactly, he and Stiles are going there now.

“Do I get my own room?” Stiles asks as Derek pulls out of the yard. He’s looking out of the window, his fingers tapping restlessly on his knees. Derek resists the urge to reach over and hold them still.

“Your own room?” he repeats, watching the road so he doesn’t have to be distracted by Stiles’ movement.

“When you rebuild,” Stiles clarifies. “There’s got to be room for all of us, right? So do I get my own room?”

Derek frowns. “You have a room. And a house,” he points out.

“But no swimming pool,” Stiles says immediately. He grins, his mouth wide and teasing. “You totally have room for a swimming pool.”

“I’m not building a swimming pool,” Derek says firmly, his head feeling like it’s swimming itself.

Stiles laughs. “I thought you loved swimming,” he says, his voice dancing on the edge of mockery. He’s obviously thinking about the same thing as Derek: those hours they spent in the school swimming pool, Derek frozen in Stiles’ arms and convinced the entire time that Stiles would give up and let him drown. It isn’t a pleasant memory.

“I don’t,” he says curtly. The truth is, he’s never particularly liked the water; he wasn’t a strong swimmer as a child, a fact for which Cora used to tease him mercilessly. Spending several hours trapped in a pool with only _Stiles_ standing in the way of certain death has only exacerbated his distaste.

They don’t talk for several minutes as Derek drives to his old home, which for Stiles is something of a feat. He doesn’t stop moving the whole way, drumming his fingers, tapping his feet, jiggling his leg, like he’s dancing to some internal tune that only he can hear. Derek feels as though he’s itching under his skin, something restless that he can’t quite reach fluttering at the back of his skull. He keeps his eyes on the road, but he can still see Stiles out of the corner of his eye.

At last, Derek turns the corner and starts to make his way up the long drive towards his house. “We’re here,” he says unnecessarily.

“Cool,” Stiles says easily, nodding his head and whistling tunelessly through his teeth. Derek’s hands tighten around the steering wheel.

“Stiles,” he says in a flat voice.

Stiles looks over at him, brown eyes wide. “Yeah?”

“Can you… be quiet?” He can hear how pained his voice sounds.

“Sure,” Stiles says, sounding surprised. He laughs. “Sorry.”

Of course, this has the consequence of making Derek feel like an asshole, because really, what’s the big deal? He knows full well that Stiles has ADHD; he almost feels like he’s being discriminatory. He grits his teeth, pulling up outside the remains of the house in between two large oak trees.

Stiles unbuckles his seatbelt with unnecessary care, as though he’s trying not to let it click too loudly, which makes Derek feel even worse. He deliberately slams the car door shut once he’s climbed out, making the entire vehicle tremble in a way that’s almost certainly not good for it. To his annoyance, Stiles has a small smile on his face, like Derek’s temper is _amusing_ him.

“What now?” Derek barks.

Stiles shrugs. “I guess we should look around,” he says. “If you’re going to rebuild this place—”

Derek feels a frisson of panic shiver through him. “Who said I was rebuilding?” he says.

“Um,” Stiles says, looking nonplussed. “Isn’t that the whole point of us being here?”

“I don’t know,” Derek says mulishly. “This was your idea.” He looks out at the ruins of his former home; already, he can feel dread curling through his stomach. It hurts to be here, hurts to look at a place that was once the home he shared with his family and is now nothing more than a shell.

Once, he hadn’t been able to leave, to move on. Laura, his last remaining thread tying him to the memories of his family, had died, and all he’d had left was the house. He’d spent hours just wandering through it, the acrid scent of smoke still lingering in the air, touching the crisped husks of rooms and trying to picture them the way they had looked before, terrified that he would forget. He knows now that that was grief; he is better now. Now, being here is just horrifying.

He feels the gentlest touch at his elbow, and flinches; Stiles is suddenly right there, in his space. His face is soft. “Hey,” he says quietly.

Derek bites his lip, hard enough to bleed. “Hey,” he says.

Stiles hesitates, looking around. Carefully, he picks his way between some of the piles of rubble, stopping beside a large heap of blackened wooden planks and turning to catch Derek’s eye. “Where am I?” he calls.

Derek frowns. “What?”

Stiles looks from left to right, gesturing to the empty bits of rebar around him. “In the house. Where am I?”

There’s not even a moment’s hesitation; Derek doesn’t have to think twice. “In the kitchen,” he says. His teeth worry at his bruised lip. “Standing in the doorway.”

“Hmm.” Stiles frowns pensively down at the littered ground. “Where’s the fridge?”

The pressure in Derek’s chest is lifting, just slightly, just enough to allow him to step through the detritus to stand in front of Stiles. It’s easy to picture it: the enormous French doors that stood permanently open between the kitchen and the den, the terracotta-coloured walls that his dad always complained about, the brass light fittings underneath his mom’s calendar, covered in her smudged scribble.

“Over here,” he tells Stiles, pointing. If he closes his eyes, he can almost see it.

“Fridge magnets?” Stiles asks.

Derek feels himself smiling. “Poetry magnets,” he says. “They were Cora’s.”

Stiles makes a face. “Seriously?”

It’s hard to imagine it now; Cora is so brittle and hard these days, a far cry from the soft young teenager who was so interested in the Romantics. “She used to write it,” he recalls. “Pages and pages of it. She left them all over the house.”

Stiles moves a little closer to him, his breath warm on Derek’s face. “Yeah?” he says softly.

“Yeah,” Derek says. “When she was little, she’d leave them under my pillow because she wanted me to have good dreams. Poems about flowers, about our family, about wolves. She’d scribble them in the margins of books. One time, she wrote a poem about homework on the kitchen table. Mom was crazy, she’d written it in Magic Marker so it wouldn’t come off, but she was also really proud because it was beautiful. Every time anyone sat there to eat you’d just see this really beautiful little haiku about math homework.” He stops, his throat feeling oddly tight.

“Wow,” Stiles says. He sounds weird; if Derek didn’t know better he’d say Stiles sounds _emotional_. “That’s amazing.” He hesitates. “Do you think she still writes?”

“I don’t know,” Derek says. Truthfully, he hasn’t really thought about it; it’s been a long time since he remembered Cora’s poetry. “If she does, she keeps it to herself, I guess.”

Stiles nods thoughtfully. “We could get poetry magnets,” he says. “They’re, like, ten bucks on Amazon.”

“I’d like that,” Derek finds himself saying. He stops, biting his lip again. “I don’t want it to be the same,” he says jerkily. “The house, I mean.”

“Okay,” Stiles says easily. “That’s okay. You can do whatever you want.”

“The walls were orange,” Derek says. “Dad hated them. Mom called them terracotta, but they were orange.”

“In the kitchen?” Stiles asks, looking around as if he can actually see it. “Here?”

“Yeah,” Derek says. “Mom wouldn’t let us change them. We all hated them.”

“What colour would you have them?” Stiles asks.

Derek thinks about it. It had been so homely, their kitchen; very kitsch, with a lot of ye olde furniture that Derek had always found a little pretentious. “Blue,” he says. “Modern.”

Stiles is already nodding. “Okay,” he says. “Can we have a pantry? I always wanted a pantry.”

“Yeah, okay,” Derek says. “And windows. Really big windows, that lead out into the garden.”

“Maybe a conservatory, with the kitchen table in it,” Stiles suggests. Derek likes the idea of that; something huge and spacious, letting in the light. He doesn’t want any darkness in his home.

“A den, I guess,” he says. “With cream couches.”

“Giant TV,” Stiles agrees enthusiastically. “PS4 _and_ Xbox 1.”

Derek rolls his eyes. “I’ll have to have a giant table, to fit everyone,” he says. “There’s so many of us now.”

“Sure,” Stiles says. He has a smile on his face, and Derek is struck suddenly by how beautiful it makes him look. “Whatever you want, Der.”

 _Whatever he wants_. It has been a long, long time since Derek has really thought about what it is he wants; it’s always been about survival, about making sure, yet again, that nobody dies. He knows they’re lucky, to have made it this far. “I want a blue kitchen,” he says decisively.

“We should get Erica to make a plan for you,” Stiles says.

Derek frowns. “Erica?”

“Yeah.” Stiles steps a little closer; Derek can hear his heart beating, loud in the quiet of the forest. “She wants to be an architect, you know.”

Now he feels stupid, because he’s supposed to be the Alpha. “No,” he says quietly. “I didn’t know that.”

“Dude, it’s okay,” Stiles says softly. “You can’t know everything.”

“I should,” Derek says roughly. There’s something very charged about this moment, here between them; something that feels like more than Stiles just helping him out. And why is it Stiles, anyway? He’s not even a wolf. What has this to do with him, really? And yet there’s something extremely _right_ about him being here.

“Derek,” Stiles says. His mouth is very close. Derek’s eyes are drawn to his lips, to the line of his jaw, the scattering of moles on his chin. He can feel the blood pulsing through Stiles’ neck.

“We should go,” he says thickly, because suddenly he doesn’t want to be here anymore. “We should… ask Erica. To do the plan.”

He’s standing so close to Stiles that he swears he can feel the air moving when Stiles smiles. “Okay,” he says.

Derek feels lighter than air, all the way home, and Stiles’ relentless tapping doesn’t annoy him at all.


	2. Ride This Train

“Derek,” Erica says patiently. “Try and concentrate.”

It’s not easy to concentrate. The loft is full, and there is noise and movement everywhere around him. But Derek is the Alpha, and he was the one who asked Erica to do this for him, so he forces himself to look back down at the curling blueprints laid out across the table.

“Okay,” he says. “So if we put the door there—”

“You’re going to have a problem with natural light,” she says. “I know you said that was important to you, so I was thinking, if we moved the window here—” She shuffles through the papers on the table, pulling out a different sheet. “It’s not what we talked about, I know, but…”

“No, that’s okay,” Derek says quickly. “I want it light.”

Erica looks up at him; there’s an odd, almost vulnerable smile on her face. “We could put a skylight in,” she says. She points on the plan. “If you did it here, it wouldn’t interfere with the second storey. I sketched it in, just in case.”

“Erica,” Derek says quietly, because it suddenly seems very important that she hear it, “thank you for this. I couldn’t trust anyone else.”

“There are lots of people you could trust with this, Derek,” she replies, but her eyes are warm.

“None of them are as good as you,” Derek says truthfully.

Erica bites her bottom lip. “Do you want to show Stiles?” she asks. Derek looks up at her quickly, certain that she’s making fun of him, but she doesn’t look mocking. She sounds almost shy.

He looks across the room. Stiles is sitting in one of the armchairs by the television, ostensibly reading a book but really helping Corey and Liam with their homework. As he looks over, Scott – flipping idly through a magazine on the sofa nearby with Kira tucked under his arm – reaches over and nudges Stiles’ arm. He looks up, meeting Derek’s eye, and grins.

“Be right back, guys,” he says, bouncing out of his chair. He heads straight over to Derek and Erica, like he’s somehow sensed that they need him, or perhaps Scott has relayed the conversation they’ve been having.

“Hey, Stiles,” Erica says, and since when does she smile that sincerely at Stiles without trying to push her boobs in his face?

“Hey,” Stiles says. “Are these the plans?” He looks over at Derek. “I told you Erica would be perfect for this.” Erica blushes as he speaks, the colour flooding her pale cheeks.

“You were right,” Derek says, which is not something he’d ever envisaged himself saying about Stiles. “She’s brilliant.” Erica looks at the ground, a little smile on her face.

“Have you got started on the bedrooms yet?” Stiles asks. He looks between Erica and Derek. “Have we even started talking about bedrooms yet? What colour was your bedroom before, Der?”

The entire room stills, just a little; they’ve all heard the question, and it’s like they’re collectively holding their breath. Stiles must be aware of it, but he just looks straight at Derek, his warm eyes clear, and waits for an answer.

Derek’s throat is tight, but it helps just to look at Stiles. He coughs. “Green,” he says.

“Huh,” Stiles says. “Kind of had you pegged for a whole lot of black, to be honest.”

“Derek wasn’t always such an emo.” Cora’s voice rings out from the top of the stairs. Two days after Derek and Stiles’ excursion to the house, a packet of poetry magnets magically appeared on the kitchen table; although Cora hasn’t done much more than stare balefully at them whenever she passes the fridge, Derek’s still certain she’s intrigued. Slowly, she begins walking down the stairs.

“No?” Stiles says, watching her.

Cora rolls her eyes. “He was _such_ a goody two-shoes,” she says. “Always sucking up to mom and Laura. I was always the naughty kid.”

Somewhere across the room, Scott stifles a snigger; apparently, the thought of Derek being _good_ in any capacity is highly amusing to him. Derek flushes, although he finds that he doesn’t mind as much as he might have done a year ago. Still, it’s hard to know what to say next, even as Cora crosses the living room to come and stand with him, Stiles and Erica; she looks down at the blueprints with interest.

“We’re… I mean… I’m rebuilding the house,” Derek says awkwardly. He hasn’t spoken to Cora about it; they don’t really speak about much at all, these days. It’s hard to forget her disappointment at finding that _he_ was the one who survived.

“Does that mean we’re moving out of this shithole?” Cora asks bluntly. Derek can feel the familiar tightness across his chest at her harsh tone; she’s so unhappy here, he doesn’t really understand why she stays other than that there’s no other pack for her.

“We were just talking about bedrooms,” Stiles says blandly. “What colour was yours?”

Cora just frowns at him, so Derek answers for her; even without the rubble of the house around him, it’s easy to picture her old room. “Red and gold,” he says. Cora turns to him with a strange expression in her eyes; he shrugs, feeling self-conscious. “That pretentious wallpaper you and mom brought back from Spain.”

She barks out a laugh. “You think anything’s pretentious if you can’t buy it at Walmart,” she says scornfully. “Anyway, you were the one with _dolls_.”

“Dolls,” Erica repeats, gleefully. Cora gives a wicked smile; Derek blushes deeply. “Derek had dolls?”

“They weren’t dolls,” Derek tries, but no one is listening to him. Somehow, half the pack has found their way to the kitchen table, waiting for Cora to elaborate; Stiles’ eyes flicker over to him, glittering and amused.

“They were creepy,” Cora says. “There were three of them. He used to keep them on his window seat.”

“Aunt Greta left me those—” Derek bites out, but his words are lost in a cackle of laughter from Erica.

Cora grins at him, flashing her teeth, and he can’t really be annoyed with her when she’s looking so alight and happy. “Derek used to put a stool next to the window seat at night so they could get down while he was sleeping.”

Scott chokes on his Pepsi. “I used to do that!” he says excitedly, which doesn’t really help Derek to feel in control of the situation.

“Aw, that’s so cute,” Kira says, beaming around at the group.

“Why did you even have dolls to begin with?” Jackson asks loudly. “Aren’t they for girls?”

Cora, Lydia and Erica all glare at him. He subsides.

“Cora and Laura didn’t want them,” Derek says. “Can we talk about something else?”

“How about dinner?” Stiles offers. When Derek looks over at him, he has a nice, easy-going smile on his face. “I’m _starving_.”

“You’re always starving,” Derek grouses, but the tension in his chest loosens a little bit anyway. Stiles grins at him.

“Pizza?” Scott suggests. Isaac cheers, and Kira rolls her eyes. They _always_ get pizza.

“ _No_ ,” Stiles says. “You may all be able to heal supernaturally, but I’m gonna get scurvy one of these days. Der? You up for taking me grocery shopping?”

Derek blinks; he hadn’t quite expected that. “Um,” he says. “Sure.”

“Can I come?” Liam asks.

“No,” Stiles says severely. “Finish your homework.”

“Oh, _man_ ,” Liam sighs.

Stiles looks at him with narrowed eyes. “You can help cook if you finish it by the time we get back,” he says, and Liam smiles happily. Unaccountably, Derek feels irritation building underneath his skin. He’s supposed to be the Alpha; why is it that Stiles always knows what to say? He can barely remember Liam’s last name on a good day, let alone even begin to know how to keep him happy.

God, it’s so clear that he’s not cut out for this, when even _Stiles_ can manage his pack better than he can. They all listen to Stiles, and he knows them. It wouldn’t have even occurred to Derek to buy Cora poetry magnets.

“Come on,” he growls, and Stiles looks over at him, clearly surprised by the change in his tone. Derek fights to keep his gaze steady. “If you want to get food—”

“Okay,” Stiles says easily, which is even more frustrating, because Derek feels like tension is coiled in every part of his body and Stiles is loose and free. “I’ll just grab my jacket.”

He turns away, presumably to do just that, and Cora immediately takes the opportunity to whack Derek in the chest just a little too hard to be playful. “What’s your problem, big brother?” she hisses.

“I don’t have a problem,” Derek says automatically.

“Derek just hates everyone,” Jackson says snidely. Lydia frowns at him, but no one seems to disagree. Something throbs painfully in Derek’s chest.

“Not _everyone_ ,” Theo, who Derek has been trying valiantly to pretend _isn’t_ in the room, speaks up, his voice annoyingly smooth. He looks meaningfully across the room at Stiles, who is blithely pulling on his jacket by the door, one of the only people in the room without the supernatural hearing to listen in to the conversation.

He looks up, seeing a few of the pack members staring at him, and grins goofily. “You coming, Der?” he asks. He doesn’t _sound_ offended by Derek’s previous surliness, but it’s hard to know sometimes with Stiles.

“Yeah,” he says, pushing past Cora and striding across the room. “Let’s go.”

“Cool,” Stiles says, and promptly trips over his own feet as he follows Derek out of the loft. This is so commonplace that Derek barely even feels the need to roll his eyes, pushing the enormous door open and walking out to the sound of Erica’s titters.

Stiles waits until they’re downstairs, and therefore out of earshot of the other pack members, before he says quietly: “Are you okay?”

Derek looks sideways at him, because it’s kind of weird that he’s asking. They don’t ask each other those kinds of questions. “Of course I am,” he says brusquely, fumbling in his pocket for his car keys. Trust Stiles to figure out exactly what to say to make him feel awkward.

“Can I drive?” Stiles asks, the way he always does.

That’s when Derek does something completely out of character, and tosses Stiles the keys.

For a few moments, they both just look at each other, both almost as surprised as the other. Stiles’ mouth is hanging comically open, his eyes wide; Derek’s heart is pounding in his chest. He’s not sure why he did it, except for the fact that he keeps hearing Jackson’s words resonating in his head: _Derek just hates everyone_. It feels so unfair, because he doesn’t hate anyone, but what’s worse is that the whole pack just seemed to accept it.

“I don’t hate you,” he says jerkily, and then wishes he hadn’t.

Stiles opens and closes his mouth a couple of times, looking remarkably like a fish. “You don’t hate me,” he repeats. “That’s… good?”

“Right,” Derek says. He bites his tongue, hard. Everything feels fucked up and messy, and his chest is hurting. “Let’s go.”

They get in the car, Derek in the passenger side. It feels weird to watch Stiles running his hands lovingly across the steering wheel, clearly overwhelmed by the fact that he’s actually getting to drive the Camaro, but weirder still is the fact that Stiles isn’t talking. He keeps shooting little glances at Derek from under his eyelashes, like he doesn’t realise that Derek will see him doing it. The sound of their seatbelts clicking into place is exceptionally loud.

“Derek,” he says at last. He looks quickly over at Derek, and then straight ahead again. “You know I don’t… you know I don’t hate you either, right?”

Impossibly, Derek’s chest begins to loosen, the horrible knot of tension releasing just a little. He works his mouth to make it operate properly. “Right,” he says.

Stiles tips his head to one side. “Derek,” he says wonderingly. “Are you _smiling_?”

Derek touches his face; it seems that yes, he is. “Yes,” he says, because that seems like the right answer. Then, a little defensively: “I smile.”

Stiles closes his eyes briefly. “This is so unfair,” he mutters. He turns the key in the ignition, and the Camaro roars into life. Stiles opens his eyes again, and Derek decides not to ask what he means.

He casts around for a different topic of conversation as Stiles carefully pulls out of the yard, because for once Stiles is actually being quiet; clearly, the responsibility of the Camaro is focusing his attention. They drive much, much slower than Derek is used to, down the track drive.

“Do you worry about Theo?” is what he finally comes up with. Stiles glances at him, before swiftly returning his eyes to the road.

“Like, worry about _him_? Or worry that he’s going to turn evil again and ruin all our lives?” he asks, in a matter-of-fact tone that should be seriously worrying but is somehow totally normal.

Derek thinks about it. “Both, I guess.”

“I think he’s lonely,” Stiles says, his tone surprisingly thoughtful. “Liam’s the only one who really talks to him. Nobody trusts him.”

“That’s his own fault,” Derek says.

“Dude, I know,” Stiles assures him. He bites his lip, clearly considering the question. “Ethan and Aiden didn’t start on the right side,” he says. “They’ve, like, assimilated.”

“I think Danny has a lot to do with that,” Derek says without thinking. “And Lydia, I guess.”

“Lydia and Aiden aren’t together anymore,” Stiles says, so quickly it’s almost automatic. Right. Derek had almost forgotten about his eternal crush on Lydia.

“Yeah, I know,” he says, because he does know _some_ things. “I just meant…”

“You think if Theo dated someone in the pack he’d be less lonely?” Stiles’ voice has taken on that tone that Derek has come to be quite wary of; it’s his _plotting_ voice. “Because I’ve always kind of thought that he and Malia—”

“ _Malia_?” Derek repeats incredulously. Malia, frequently and loudly, makes sure that everyone in the pack knows exactly how much she distrusts Theo. “Malia and _Theo_?”

Stiles laughs, a sound which makes Derek feel much lighter than it should. “Part of the reason she hates him so much is because they used to flirt before we found out he was, like, evil.”

Derek frowns. “Weren’t you two together then?”

“I guess,” Stiles says, waving a hand in a way that says he doesn’t want to talk about it. “We were so over, though.” He glances at Derek. “She’s not really… my type.”

“Oh,” Derek says stupidly. He looks out of the window; they’re pulling into the parking lot for the grocery store, so he shuts up so that Stiles can concentrate on parking. He slides into a space set away from the other cars with frankly more skill than Derek is expecting.

“Awesome,” he says, smiling. He looks at Derek. “Driving this car has been, like, a lifelong dream ever since—”

“You look after everyone,” Derek interrupts with absolutely no finesse. Stiles stops midsentence, closing his mouth with an audible clack. “In the pack, I mean.”

“Um,” Stiles says. His cheeks are going a deliciously pink colour, and since when has Derek thought that any part of Stiles was delicious? “I mean, I guess?”

Derek bites his lip. “How do you _know_?” he says, his words far more garbled than he’d like. “How do you know how to do it? How to – look after them all the way they need?”

The embarrassed expression on Stiles’ face is replaced by a concerned one; he puts a hand tentatively on Derek’s arm. “Hey,” he says. “Der, you do well, it’s okay.”

That doesn’t answer his question at all. “Jackson said—” He stops abruptly. He hadn’t meant to say that.

“Jackson’s an asshole,” Stiles says firmly. “And you’re an idiot if you believe a single word that comes out of his mouth.”

“He said I hate everyone,” Derek says, very quietly. He’s still not sure why he’s telling any of this to Stiles, except that he’s here and looking… the way he looks… and Derek, oddly, _wants_ to talk to him.

Stiles snorts. “That’s ridiculous,” he says. “You don’t hate half the people you should.”

“But if that’s what they all—” Derek’s face must be flaming; he sounds so pathetic, so desperate for affection. He bites his tongue, and tastes blood.

“Derek,” Stiles says seriously. “No one believes that. You’re doing a great job.”

“You do it better than I do,” Derek says mulishly.

Stiles laughs. “I’m the worst,” he says cheerfully. “I don’t do anything.”

“That’s not—” Derek starts, frustrated. “Don’t you see it? You – you help with their homework. And you know that Erica wants to be an architect. And you always know what to say. And Cora – likes you.”

Stiles is looking at him curiously. “You lead them,” he says. “You give them a home, and a sense of purpose. You keep them all safe. Do you think that doesn’t mean anything?”

“No, but—”

“But what, you don’t do _everything_ , so it’s not good enough?” Stiles presses. Derek snaps his mouth shut. To his horror, his eyes are prickling with tears. Stiles’ hand slides gently up his arm; it feels oddly nice. “Derek,” he says gently. “It doesn’t have to be all or nothing.”

Derek opens his mouth, and then closes it again. He has no idea what to say to that.

“Isn’t that what a pack’s about?” Stiles asks. “We all bring different strengths to the table?” He hesitates. “Wasn’t that what your mom’s pack was like?”

Perhaps the sensible thing to do here would be to answer the question; to agree, because that actually makes a ridiculous amount of sense to Derek. His heart is doing something funny in his chest, almost as though it’s soaring, and it feels a little like a weight has rolled off his shoulders. He doesn’t have to be everything to everyone. It’s okay.

That’s what he should be saying, should be expressing in some way, because Stiles has just inspired a revelation in Derek. But instead, he reacts to a completely different revelation.

Lunging across the front seat of the car, his seatbelt cutting painfully into his stomach, he grabs Stiles’ face in both hands.

And kisses him.


	3. In The Backseat Of Your Rover

For the briefest of moments, Stiles’ lips are soft and warm underneath his. His heart is fluttering as wildly as a rabbit’s, loud in the quiet of the car, and Derek forces himself to concentrate on the sound, because that’s _fear_.

He doesn’t wait for Stiles to push him away, pulling back almost as soon as he’d leaned forward in the first place. Stiles is frozen in shock, and Derek feels like the worst person in the entire world.

“Derek…” Stiles begins.

“Fuck,” Derek says eloquently. “I’m sorry. _Fuck_.”

“Okay, whoa,” Stiles says. He sounds a little more like himself; Derek, face burning, forces himself to look up at him. Stiles is frowning. “That’s kind of unfair, dude,” he says. “I mean, I wasn’t expecting you. You can’t apologise for a kiss that barely even happened. I didn’t have time to be bad at it!”

“Wha—” Derek says, utterly mystified by this seemingly nonsensical stream of thought. “ _What_?”

Stiles has an odd little smile on his face. “You wanted to kiss me, right?” he asks, his voice strangely tentative. “I mean, you didn’t just do it because you thought that was what I wanted?”

Derek stares at him. “No?”

“Cool,” Stiles says. “Do it again.”

Something very close to _hope_ is blooming in Derek’s chest, warm and inviting. Fervently hoping that he’s not totally misreading the situation, he reaches down slowly, unbuckling his seatbelt with a faint _click_. Stiles smiles, the expression almost sly.

“Stiles—” Derek says, and then stops. He wants to ask, _are you sure?_ But it seems pretty clear from the way Stiles’ tongue is running over his lower lip, the way his breath is coming in short sharp pants, the way his heart is thrumming – _not_ fear, after all – that yes, he’s sure, Derek doesn’t need to check.

Stiles will tell him to stop, if that’s what he wants. He trusts him to do that.

He _trusts_ Stiles.

This time, he moves slower, sliding across the seat with purpose so that he has less distance to reach Stiles. Stiles is waiting, smiling, and Derek finds himself reaching for his face again, holding it in both hands. His thumb brushes across Stiles’ cheek; it’s like electricity, dancing through Derek’s fingers and up his arm at the place where they’re touching. Stiles closes his eyes, shuddering.

Derek kisses him again.

His mouth is warm, soft in a way Derek wasn’t necessarily expecting, and as he kisses it, Stiles wraps his arms around Derek’s neck. It’s been so, so long since Derek had another person in his arms, soft and fragile, yet somehow reassuring in his sturdiness. Keeping one hand on Stiles’ face, he reaches around Stiles’ waist with the other, wanting to feel him, as much of him as possible.

“Derek,” Stiles sighs into his mouth, and somehow the sound of his own name is enough to make Derek groan, the sound low and filthy. He kisses Stiles harder, sliding his tongue between Stiles’ parted lips, his movements frantic and needy. Oh, if he could have planned this, he’d be so suave, the best kisser in the world! But here he is, grinding his entire body against Stiles’ with absolutely no game whatsoever, because he’s desperate for it, desperate for Stiles, desperate to feel this.

He realises, with a sudden shock, that he’s pushed himself up against Stiles, so much so that he’s almost looming over him. Is he forcing this more than he should? Stiles is kissing him back with enough enthusiasm that Derek isn’t worried that he’s not _enjoying_ it, exactly, but still, it feels like too much.

“Hey,” Stiles gasps. “Derek. Come back.”

Derek pulls back just enough to pant: “What?”

“Don’t overthink this, dude,” Stiles says. He laughs, the sound choked and breathless. “Believe me, I’m, like, the _king_ of overthinking, but can we just go with it? For now?”

“Stiles,” Derek says.

Stiles reaches up to touch Derek’s face. “Yeah?”

“I—” He stops. “You’re important,” he offers lamely.

Somehow, however, it seems to be enough; Stiles’ face splits in an enormous grin. His voice is – there’s no other word for it – positively _gooey_ when he speaks. “Yeah?” he says.

“Yes,” Derek says with certainty.

“So are you,” Stiles says firmly. “To all of us, and especially to me.”

“Okay,” Derek says, and even allowing that much feels like a big deal.

“Can we go back to the kissing thing now?” Stiles asks.

“Yes,” Derek says, and they go back to the kissing thing. Derek kisses Stiles’ jaw, the side of his mole-speckled neck, the soft skin behind his ear, and Stiles gasps and shudders and holds Derek close, like he’s something precious.

“Oh shit,” he whispers, as Derek sucks a mark into the underside of Stiles’ chin. “Your mouth, Der, I swear to God, I’ve – _fuck_ – been wanting this for so fucking long—”

“You have?” Derek says curiously, blunt nails scratching up the back of Stiles’ neck and into his scalp. Stiles moans loudly.

“Yeah,” he groans. “Yeah, I have. Oh _God_ , Derek, do that again.”

Derek, his teeth scraping against Stiles’ collarbone, is quite happy to do it again, his hands tightening on Stiles’ hips. Suddenly, the desire to _laugh_ almost overwhelms him; it just seems so ridiculously funny, sat here in the passenger seat of his own car, making out with this beautiful exhilarating magical boy like he’s a teenager again, here in the grocery store parking lot where anyone could see him, like they don’t both have perfectly respectable homes they could go to. And they’re doing it – not because they have to, because anyone’s survival depends on it, but because it’s a thing that they want to do. It’s that simple, that easy, that exciting.

“Derek?” Stiles says, his voice questioning.

“Yeah,” Derek says huskily, nipping Stiles’ jawline. And then he does laugh, just a little, because he can.

“Careful,” Stiles says fondly, kissing Derek’s mouth. “People will think you’re actually happy.”

_I am_ , Derek thinks.

They kiss for a long, long time. Stiles’ mouth and chin are red with stubble burn, and they’re both breathless and gasping, by the time Derek finally draws back. There’s absolutely nothing dignified about it, nothing sophisticated, and rather against his will Derek is thrown back to a time when all he wanted was to be dignified and sophisticated for Kate, because he thought it would impress her.

She’d laughed at his attempts to seem more grown up, but that hadn’t stopped him from making them. And now – now he can be as ridiculous and undignified as he likes, because it’s _Stiles_. He can do anything he wants with Stiles.

“We should probably get the food,” Stiles puffs, out of breath. Derek grins at him.

“Okay,” he says. “After you.”

Stiles huffs out a laugh and gives him the finger, because there’s no way either of them are going anywhere until they’ve calmed down a little. Stiles’ shirt has slipped down his shoulder, and his hair is even more unruly than usual. His face is flushed and happy, and if he’s in any kind of similar state to Derek, he’s painfully hard. It’s quite nice, to be hard without feeling like he has to do anything about it just now; there’s no rush. They have time.

When they finally do tumble out of the car, Derek has a smile on his face that he can’t – and really, doesn’t want to – shake. He waits for Stiles to walk around the car, and the anxiety he thinks he probably should be feeling still fails to make an appearance. Stiles grins at him.

“They’re going to be able to smell this, aren’t they?” he asks. Derek bites his lip, but even then, he can’t stop smiling.

“Yes,” he says honestly. “I don’t mind, though.”

Stiles slips a hand into Derek’s. It’s warm, slightly calloused. “Good,” he says. “I’m clingy.” He glances mischievously at Derek. “And braggy. Dude, I’m going to _brag_ about you.”

Derek thinks about this, and decides that it’s fully okay with him. “Alright,” he says.

As they walk across the parking lot, Stiles keeps sneaking little looks at him, like he has to continually check that Derek is actually there. He trips over nothing a couple of times, because he’s not really looking where he’s going, but it’s okay because Derek is still holding his hand. Keeping him upright. Which, he figures, is only fair, since that seems to be what Stiles is doing for him in the pack.

Stiles’ cell starts buzzing just as they walk through the double doors at the front of the store, so Derek goes off to get a trolley while Stiles answers it. He has to wait behind a middle-aged woman with a little boy hanging off the back of her coat; she gives him a tired, apologetic smile, and then tips her head a little to one side, considering him. Perhaps she thinks he’s attractive – that, at least, is normal – or perhaps she thinks he looks like a serial killer. Either way, Derek hopes that she’s watching as he takes his trolley, pushing it back to where Stiles is standing, still on his cell phone. He hopes that she sees him curl his arm protectively around Stiles’ waist, sees him pressing a kiss into Stiles’ hair.

Stiles smiles distractedly, leaning into Derek’s touch. He says: “Look, Corey, if you don’t know what an integer is, ask Mason. I’m _busy_. Put Scott back on the phone.”

There’s the buzz of someone talking on the other end, and Stiles sighs. “Liam, I don’t have to be a werewolf to know it’s you.”

Derek finds himself smiling into Stiles’ hair; he squeezes the back of Stiles’ neck, and Stiles muffles a groan, arching back into his touch. He says, his voice garbled: “No – what? Not you, Liam. _Yes_ , we’ll get fucking Angel Delight. You’re twelve. Can you just—? Oh, _fuck_.” He grinds to a halt as Derek swoops forward to kiss the side of his neck, his tongue sliding up behind Stiles’ ear. “Scotty? Um, nothing. I’m f-fine – _Derek_ —”

In one fluid motion, Derek scoops the phone out of Stiles’ hand, putting it to his own ear. Stiles is pressing back against him, eyes closed and head tipped back, and somehow it doesn’t seem as though he’s in any fit state to talk to Scott.

“Stiles?” Scott’s concerned voice is thin and metallic on the other end of the phone.

“Stiles is fine, Scott,” Derek says firmly. “He’s in the middle of something. What did you need?”

“Um,” Scott says. “Are you guys—?”

“Yes,” Derek says. His face flushes red, even though Scott can’t see him. “I’m hanging up now.”

And he does.


End file.
